Rouge

Yinji kau

Fleur, a courtesan, falls in love with the wealthy heir Chan Chen-Pang amid the opium-fuelled high life of 1930s Hong Kong. Rejected by his parents, who disapprove of their relationship, the lovers make a suicide pact, killing themselves to be together once more in the afterlife. Multi-award winning and celebrated by critics worldwide, this exquisite film by Stanley Kwan (based on the novella of the same title by the novelist Lilian Lee) is inspired by that classic theme of romanticism (by which mad infatuation cannot be contained within the bounds of reality, fatalistically escaping the limits of life through death) but goes on to upend it in a most imaginative, inventive, and cinematically singular way. Combining myth, Hitchcockian suspense, and ardent cinephilia with an exceptionally pertinent commentary on the ways in which postmodern pragmatism neuters the passions, Rouge – a full 36 years after it first screened – still exerts an irresistible allure.
Screening Schedule

No physical screenings scheduled.

Direction: Stanley Kwan
Script: Lee Pik Wah, Chui Dai an Ping
Cinematography: Bill Wong
Editing: Cheung Yiu Chung
Music: Michael Lai
Actors: Auita Mui, Leslie Cheung, Alex Man, Emily Chu
Production: Golden Harvest Company
Producers: Jackie Chan
Costumes: Fung-Lan Wan
Production Design: Horace Ma
Executive producer: Leonard Ho
Format: DCP
Color: Color
Production Country: Hong Kong
Production Year: 1987
Duration: 97'
Contact: Fortune Star Media
Awards/Distinctions: Best Cinematography, Best Leading Actress, Best Art Direction – Golden Horse FF 1987, Best Actress – Asia-Pacific FF 1989, Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Actress – Hong Kong Film Awards 1989

Stanley Kwan

Hong Kong-born Stanley Kwan (1957) began his filmmaking career at Television Broadcasts Limited in Hong Kong, working closely with many of the country’s young New Wave directors. As one of the few openly gay directors in Asia, Kwan’s films often revolve around aspects of gender and sexuality as portrayed in his films Rouge, Full Moon in New York, and Center Stage. Kwan himself came out as a gay man in his 1996 documentary, Yang ± Yin, which explores the history of Chinese-language film through the prism of gender roles and sexuality. Kwan’s critically acclaimed Rouge won Best Film and Best Director honors at the 1988 Hong Kong Film Awards, while in 2001, he won the Best Director award at the prestigious Golden Horse Film Festival for his film Lan Yu. His exquisitely stylized, richly emotional films employ the conventions of melodrama with a rare sensitivity and sincerity. Empathetically attuned to the longings and struggles of women, awash in gorgeous mise-en-scène, his works entwine majestic melancholy with complex reflections on history, society, and politics.

Filmography

1986 Love Unto Waste
1987 Rouge
1989 Full Moon in New York
1994 Red Rose White Rose
1998 Hold You Tight
2001 Lan Yu
2005 Everlasting Regret
2018 First Night Nerves